Romeo and Juliet: Plot Summary

Act 1 - The feud and the feast

• A street brawl between the feuding Montagues and Capulets is broken up by Prince Escalus, who warns that the next to disturb the peace will pay with their life.
• Romeo, lovesick over Rosaline, is talked into gatecrashing a Capulet feast in disguise.
• There he and Juliet meet and fall in love at once - each only afterwards learning the other belongs to the enemy house.
• Tybalt spots Romeo and wants to fight, but Lord Capulet orders him to leave the intruder be; Tybalt backs down, vowing revenge.

Act 2 - The secret marriage

• That night Romeo returns to the Capulets' garden and overhears Juliet confessing her love from her balcony; they agree to marry.
• The next morning Friar Lawrence agrees to marry them, hoping the match will end the families' feud.
• The Nurse carries messages between the lovers and helps arrange the wedding.
• That same afternoon - barely a day after they met - Romeo and Juliet are married in secret at the Friar's cell.

Act 3 - Death and banishment

• Tybalt comes looking for Romeo; when Romeo refuses to fight his new kinsman, Mercutio draws instead and is killed under Romeo's arm.
• Enraged, Romeo kills Tybalt and the Prince banishes him from Verona on pain of death.
• Not knowing Juliet is already married, Lord Capulet promises her to Paris and sets the wedding for Thursday.
• Juliet refuses; her father rages and threatens to disown her, and even the Nurse tells her to forget Romeo and marry Paris - leaving her with no one but the Friar.

Act 4 - The plan

• Desperate, Juliet goes to Friar Lawrence, who gives her a potion that will make her appear dead for forty-two hours.
• The plan: her family will lay her in the tomb, the Friar will send for Romeo, and he will carry her away when she wakes.
• Juliet drinks it alone that night, terrified it may be real poison or that she may wake among the dead.
• On the wedding morning she is found apparently lifeless, and the celebration becomes a funeral.

Act 5 - The tomb

• The Friar's message never reaches Romeo - its carrier is shut up in a plague quarantine - so he hears only from his servant that Juliet is dead.
• Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and rides to her tomb, where he meets Paris mourning, fights him and kills him.
• Believing Juliet dead, he drinks the poison and dies beside her; moments later she wakes, finds him, and stabs herself with his dagger.
• The Friar arrives too late; and before the Prince, the grieving Montagues and Capulets finally make peace over their children's bodies.

"O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die"